New Yorkers Could Soon Be Notified When Gun Offenders Move Into the Neighborhood

Proposed city council legislation would make a gun offender registry accessible to the public, and residents could sign up for alerts about developments in their neighborhoods.

“It gives you the name of the individual,” said Queens Councilman Costa Constantinides, one of the bill’s sponsors. “It gives you the street name — so let’s say 34th Street in that ZIP code. It’ll give you the general description of the individual. It’ll give you the crime that they committed and their sentence.”

Photo credit: Shutterstock

The bill is set to be introduced Thursday in the City Council, and a hearing on the legislation is expected in the coming weeks, Capital New York reported.

“I give Commissioner (Bill) Bratton tremendous credit. He is the guy, of course, who brought us the CompStat system,” the mayor said, referring to the statistical system largely credited for cutting crime in the city in the 1990s. “The whole notion is to quickly and agilely make moves and adjustments, and that’s being done as we speak.”

“We are not saying that these individuals have to stay on this registry forever,” Constantinides said. “If you’re a good actor, if you’ve turned your life around and after four years [you’ve] had no arrests and no issues you’re able to be expunged from this list.”

Some have raised privacy concerns, especially after a New York newspaper published the names and addresses of gun owners in a number of counties last year. Others are concerned that, because of New York’s extremely restrictive gun laws, people will end up on the list who haven’t actually committed violent crimes.

But Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., a strong supporter of the bill, said if you don’t want your name available to the public, “don’t use a gun.”

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